


push and pull (like a magnet do)

by SmilinStar



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, mentions of Memori, mentions of raven x zeke, murven - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 05:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14763081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmilinStar/pseuds/SmilinStar
Summary: She must look confused, as he sits up a little straighter in his chair then and elaborates. “You know? Like two like poles and . . .” he drifts off, motioning with two hands moving away from each other.It takes her a second to get it, and then she can’t help the grin that spreads on her face. “Are you trying to use a physics metaphor on me, Murphy?”Or two times Raven and Murphy discuss the physics of relationships . . .





	push and pull (like a magnet do)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Ed Sheeran song I really don’t need to name :-P

 

))((

 

It doesn’t matter that it’s been well over five years now.

There’s something about the Ring ‘after dark’ that still creeps her the hell out.

Maybe it’s the way the corridors feel deserted with everyone asleep in their quarters, and the way the lights around the ship have automatically dimmed according to their set timers, casting eerie shadows around every corner.

Or maybe it’s the silence.

A silence that’s nothing but the persistent soft hum of the generators and the background buzz of the electrics that keep this place running. It’s the kind of silence that makes every other little noise seem ten times louder – boots on the metal grating, the creak of the hull, the sound of her own heartbeat and the breath in her lungs.

It’s one of those nights.

Where the pain in her leg has started up, a throbbing ache, and she’s shit out of luck with painkillers – what little that had been left behind in the infirmary are long finished – and the only thing left now, that helps even a little, is to go for a walk and stretch out those screaming muscles.

But Raven’s no coward and so she sucks it up and does what she has to.

Just like always.

She manages three laps around the corridors before the pain in her leg turns to a burn of a different kind, forcing her to stop and head for the rec room in search of water.

She doesn’t see him, so much as hear him first.

“Can’t sleep either, huh?”

She’ll later commend herself for not screaming out loud. Not that her heart isn’t pounding in her chest because holy hell, he made her jump out of her skin.

“Jesus, Murphy! What the hell are you doing creeping around in the dark?!”

She hits the switch, and the lights flicker on.

It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust, and another moment for her to make sense of what she’s seeing.

And yep.

That is definitely John Murphy sitting there at the table, holding a wet rag to his busted, bleeding brow, looking entirely miserable.

Raven takes a second to ease her breathing, and she feels her heart rate slow as she does. “What happened to you?” she asks with a raised brow, stepping into the room and heading for the sink and a glass of water.

“Nothing happened.” The words are a grumpy mumble under his breath, but she can make it out just fine.

“Doesn’t look like nothing,” she says, glass in hand now and walking over to the table. She pulls out a chair across from him and eases herself into it, before carefully lifting her bum leg to rest it on another seat. His gaze flickers briefly to her brace before looking away.

She knows he won’t ask her why she’s still up – Murphy’s not a complete idiot, he can put two and two together. Raven also knows the guilt he feels over her leg still eats away at him, despite the fact she’s forgiven him several times over now. He just hasn’t forgiven himself yet. She’s starting to think that maybe the problem is _he doesn’t want to._

But that’s a minefield for another night.

He breathes out, leaning back in his seat as he looks up at the ceiling and lets his arm drop giving Raven a good look at the cut at the edge of his left brow. It's stopped bleeding though it doesn’t look any less angry.

He answers her pointed look and unspoken question with a deadpan: “Walked into a door.”

She snorts.

His lips twitch.

She drops her glass onto the table and leans back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest.

He sighs and waves it away as if it’s nothing. “ _Fine_. I got hit in the face by a flying copy of _The Lord of the Rings_. You happy?”

She grins. “What did you do this time?”

“Who says it was me?”

She raises a brow and he catches the expression on her face. “Yeah,” he blows out a breath but the humour’s all gone. “Course it was me. The eternal screw-up. The worthless asshole that can’t do anything right.”

“Self-pity doesn’t suit you, Murphy.”

He says nothing to that, and somehow that just makes it worse, and she finds herself softening. Because, in spite of everything that’s happened, in spite of the long, torturous history between them, they’ve somehow become friends, a family, _all of them_ , and that includes John Murphy. “You guys will sort it out. You always do.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “Not this time.”

And he’s said that before. Emori’s said the same. But there’s something about the way he says it now – the flat tone, the haunted look in his eyes at odds with the wry smile on his lips – that makes her believe that it really is over.

And she feels _sad_.

Sad for him, sad for _them._

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugs. “It is what it is.”

She doesn’t know what possesses her to ask her next question, but she finds herself asking anyway, wincing as the words come out – clumsy and awkward falling from her lips. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

He quirks his brows, giving her a look that heats up her cheeks and has her bristling in her seat. “Look, whatever, I just thought . . . never mind.” She turns away then, leaning forwards to lift her leg back to the floor. Grabbing her glass, she stands up and makes her way back over to the sink. Her leg has cramped up, so the limp is a little more pronounced than usual, but she does her best to ignore it. Just as she does her best to ignore Murphy’s gaze burning into her back.

She’s not expecting it when he finally speaks; voice so low she almost doesn’t hear him.

“To be honest, I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did.”

She turns around, leans up against the counter and listens.

“Good things never do.”

And Raven knows. Knows what he’s thinking. It’s an expression she’s seen on his face once before – haunted by memories of a young boy, safe and happy, with parents who loved him.

And the funny thing is, there isn’t anything she can say to convince him otherwise. Not when she believes it too.

“Yeah,” she breathes out.

“Maybe . . .” he starts and stops and shakes his head as if shaking the thought away.

But curiosity has her tilting forwards, prompting him to continue. “Maybe . . ?”

He looks up and meets her gaze. “Maybe Emori and I . . . we’re just too similar. _We’re the same_.”

She must look confused, as he sits up a little straighter in his chair then and elaborates. “You know? Like two like poles and . . .” he drifts off, motioning with two hands moving away from each other.

It takes her a second to get it, and then she can’t help the grin that spreads on her face. “Are you trying to use a physics metaphor on me, Murphy?”

He flushes, and damn if she doesn’t think it’s a tiny bit adorable. It must be the early hours, lack of sleep, and the pain in her leg that ever puts ‘John Murphy’ and ‘adorable’ in a sentence together, even if it exists only in her head.

“Forget it, forget I said anything.” He moves to stand up, and she rushes forward.

“Noooo,” she laughs. “No, I’m sorry. No, I get what you’re saying.”

He seems somewhat mollified, but he doesn’t make a move to sit down again, so she just presses back against the edge of the table beside him and tries to explain. “It’s just I never bought into that whole opposites attract crap – I mean that would be like saying . . .” She searches for an example, but it seems he’s already found one.

“Like saying anything could happen between you and me?”

The words hover there. And suddenly he feels a little too close, like the air between them has shifted and it’s the kind of awareness that she’s never felt before. Not with him. And no, she thinks, shutting that door before she’s even eked it open a little bit. It’s lack of sleep on her part, head injury and heartbreak on Murphy’s, that’s even leading them there.

And though it takes her a little too long to respond, Murphy doesn’t take it to mean anything but revulsion at the mere thought, and mercifully brushes the moment aside.

“Relax, Reyes. I’m just saying you’re right. It’s ridiculous.”

“Exactly. Ridiculous.” She stands up then, taking a step back from him towards the door. “Which is why you shouldn’t give up on Emori. Similarities, differences aside, you guys have a good thing going. Don’t throw it away.”

His lips curl into a sad smile as he nods. “Yeah. Maybe. Thanks for the pep talk.”

She shrugs. “Any time.”

She leaves with a “night Murphy”, and with a soft sigh and whispered, “goodnight, Reyes,” trailing after her.

She ends up doing another two laps around the ship before her head hits her pillow that night.

She dreams in ions and fields, and of spinning compasses that never land North, and remembers nothing of it in the morning.

 

))((

 

To give Raven credit, he does sort things out with Emori.

Although it takes six months, a rocky ride back down to the Ground after meeting yet another army of people who wanted them dead, and a batshit insane plan to defeat them – as all their plans usually are – to get there.

It takes nearly getting a bullet in his gut meant for Emori, for her defences to melt and for her to finally admit that she’s been missing him just as much as he’s been missing her.

“You’re an idiot!” she tells him, lying there in the dirt. “Why did you do that?!” And there are tears in her eyes, and her words are wet, and he remembers answering back with a crooked smile, and breathless laughter:

“Would have done the same for Bellamy, Clarke, Monty, Raven-”

The growing list of the few people he actually cares about are cut short then by the press of her lips to his, and just like that, they’re back together again.

He hadn’t been lying though.

He would have done the same for any one of his friends.

_Friends._

After six years the word shouldn’t surprise him anymore, and yet, it still catches him off guard.

Maybe even more surprising though, is how the months pass and they’re still there, standing beside him. Despite his occasional, poorly thought out but well-intentioned, dealings with McCreary, he still hasn’t managed to chase them away.

And he doesn’t admit to it, but he’s thankful.

Less surprising, however, is the fact that he and Emori end up parting ways once more, and _for good_ this time. It’s a mutual realisation that creeps up on them as they struggle back into a life of domesticity back on the Ground. They care about each other, always will, and she’ll always hold a special place in his heart for being the one to squeeze it back to life, but the spark has long gone and _they’re tired._

No one’s surprised. Not that anyone cares.

Those first few weeks, after the fighting stops and the bloodshed finally ends, are taken up by efforts to rebuild, and no one gives a damn about anything other than figuring out how they're going to survive the rest of their days.

The valley’s divided up among what’s left of Wonkru and the surviving prisoners – a tentative truce having been reached to live side by side.

But peace always seems such a fragile word. Like it hangs on a knife edge – a delicate thread, frayed through and all it needs is just the slightest of pressure and . . . _snap_.

He thinks they’re all holding their breaths for that moment.

In the meantime, the huts are shared among the remaining survivors. He ends up sharing with Monty and Harper, and Echo, and it feels a little like being back on the Ring, and he finds that he actually _misses_ it. Which is crazy given how _stir-crazy_ being up there had made him in the first place.

He misses a lot of things about being up there. The quiet, the safety, the lack of unpredictable weather elements, and then there’s the lack of dirt and grime that always manages to embed itself in his skin and clothes no matter how many times he tries to wash it away. He definitely doesn’t miss the algae-exclusive diet, though. Nope. So that’s score one for Earth.

But he does miss his friends – which seems a little ridiculous, he knows, given they’ve all managed to survive and they’re all down here with him, some of them even living with him.

But what he means is this: he misses _her_. And fuck, isn’t that just typical?

It’s twisted and wrong, and it’s hard to put it altogether and part of him is too frightened to. _Self-preservation,_ is what it is, and it’s what he excels at, after all.

Because if he were to think about it, and let the thought fester, he’d realise that a part of him cares beyond the guilt and sense of responsibility, part of him _wants_ that possibility for something more, and it’s a dangerous road to go down. It’s crept up on him over time, and he’s an idiot for letting it happen. Deep down he knows it’s a dead end, and not just because of their history, or that she’d never look at him in that way, but also because Raven Reyes has been a taken woman for the last four months.

And the lucky bastard?

That would be one Miles 'Zeke' Shaw.

Shaw turns out to be a half-way decent guy once he’s out from under Diyoza’s thumb, but Murphy never could get over his initial animosity, and is left only with begrudging respect and not a lot else for him.

Still, Raven looks happy these days.

Plus, the guy thinks the sun literally shine out of her ass, and well, she deserves someone who appreciates her genius, and her noble, self-sacrificing heart (that’s actually a goddamn liability but then try telling her that . . . ).

She deserves someone good. Better than him, at least.

And so, he does what he always does. Pushes it aside and carries on surviving.

It’s day number who-knows-exactly post-peace treaty, and there’s something different in the air today. It’s excitement buzzing around the settlement with a frenzy of movement as if people are packing and have somewhere they need to be, and it’s making him uneasy.

He spots Bellamy talking to a couple of Wonkru members he recognises but never bothered learning the names of.

“What’s going on?” he asks, walking up behind him as the conversation ends and the others wander off.                               

Bellamy turns around. “You haven’t heard?”

“Obviously not.”

He shakes his head, and clasps him on the shoulder, squeezing and shaking him back and forth once. “Where have you been, Murphy? Hiding under a rock?”

“Uh no, in the same place I’ve been for the past month trying not to die of boredom.”

Bellamy doesn’t bother entertaining his snark, and barrels on with his explanation. “One of the recon teams came back from their scout last night. They’ve found more habitable land, about forty kilometres or so East of here.”

“Oh, wow,” he breathes out. And he genuinely means that, because that’s . . . _that’s huge._

“Yeah, there’s a group of people who’ve decided to move out, and head there today and take their chances.”

“Who’s going?”

And what he’s really asking is: is there anyone they know?

“Mostly Wonkru. A couple of the Eligius crew who’d been loyal to Diyoza, and Shaw.”

It takes a moment. “Shaw?”

“Yeah,” Bellamy nods, and there must be something on his face that has him frowning back, a flicker of concern shaping his expression. “Murphy, you okay?”

“Yeah,” he nods, and he doesn’t know how to explain the sudden lump, pressing heavy against his chest.

“Thought you’d be glad; thought you hated the guy?”

“I don’t hate him.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

He almost doesn’t want to ask, but he can’t _not_. “I suppose Raven’s going too?” The question is supposed to come off like a shrug of the shoulder, like the answer doesn’t mean anything at all to him. And yet, that would be a lie, and somehow Bellamy already knows as he fixes him with a serious stare and claps him one last time on the shoulder. “She’s down by the river. You should probably go talk to her.”

 _And say your goodbyes while you still can_ , he thinks.

Murphy pushes the miserable thought aside and follows Bellamy's directions.

He finds her just where he'd told him she’d be: sitting perched on the rocks, bare feet dipping into the water, staring up at the sky. And for a moment hope blooms, because she certainly doesn’t look like she’s heading out anywhere any time soon.

“I thought you’d be packed and ready to move out already?”

His words break the fragile silence – a silence filled with the rushing water at his feet, the rustle of leaves with the odd breeze, the sing-song hum of the lucky few birds that survived yet another apocalypse, and the thump-thump-thump of his own heartbeat.

She doesn’t look up as she answers him with a question of her own. “What, and leave without saying goodbye?”

“I dunno, Reyes. Haven’t seen much of you lately to know if I’d still be on your list of people worth a goodbye.”

He settles down beside her on the rocks, careful to keep a fraction of space between them.

She’s rolled up the cuffs of her trousers, her brace lying abandoned beside her, as she swirls her toe around in the water.

“And here I was thinking _you_ were the one avoiding _me_.”

He swallows down the truth of it, bats back instead: “And why would I be doing that?”

“Who knows what goes on inside that twisted mind of yours, Murphy. It’s no place I wanna go.”

“You always say such sweet things to me, Reyes.”

She huffs out a laugh. And God, he missed this. And he’s a damned idiot who’s only got himself to blame.

“So, what are you doing out here, Raven? Thought you'd be back there packing with your boyfriend?”

He tries to keep his tone neutral but it’s hard when he’s made no secret of the fact he’s no fan. It’s part of the reason he’s seen so little of Raven these last few months – they just end up arguing. Not the friendly banter they’d got down to an artform during those six years up in space, but the kind of arguing that ends in hurt feelings with unintentional slips of the tongue on both sides.

Raven’s lips twist up into something that barely passes for a smile. “Ex-boyfriend.”

Oh, he thinks. _Oh._

“What happened?”

She raises a brow and takes a swipe. “What? No I told you so?”

“Come on. I’m not that much of an asshole.”

She snorts.

He shakes his head, and gently knocks his shoulder against hers.

And it kind of feels like a conversation they’ve had before, but the tables have turned as she lets out a long sigh and answers his question.

“Same thing that happened with you and Emori.”

“I’m sorry, Raven.”

She shrugs. “I’m not.”

That surprises him. So matter-of-fact, and no hesitation. He glances down at her, but her eyes are on the treeline across the river.

“You know,” she continues, “maybe you were right. Maybe there’s something to be said about magnetic fields and relationships . . .”

He raises a brow, and she must sense the expression on his face as she breathes out a soft laugh, and this time looks up and meets his gaze.

“I still think the whole opposites attract thing is a load of bullshit, though.”

He purses his lips, and nods, breathes out a “yeah” as he looks away.

But Raven’s not done with her musing. “But I think . . . I think you need _both_. The push _and_ the pull.”

And something in those words sound like the beginnings of hope.

“That,” she says, not quite finished as she pushes back to drag her leg out of the water, and gets to reattaching her brace, “and a knack for always finding your way back.”

He shakes his head, not quite following. “Have you been at the berries again, Reyes?”

He looks up to find she’s pulled herself to stand, and with the sun coming in from behind, he can’t make out her face in the shadows. But what he does make out, is the hand that drops on his head and musses his hair, fingers lingering just a little too long in the strands.

She doesn’t answer him. Says instead, “I’m glad I’m staying too.”

He huffs out a laugh because, apparently, she’s hearing and responding to things he hasn’t even said. But, the truth is, he knows the words _I’m glad you’re staying_ have been on the tip of his tongue this entire time. And she knows it too.

He twists around to watch her go. And it’s not until she’s at the edge of forest, where the rocks end and the endless trees start, that she turns back around and calls out. “Hey, Murphy?”

“Yeah?”

“Catch.”

She throws something at him, a dull glint flying through the air, landing perfectly in his one outstretched hand. She doesn’t wait for his reaction, just walks ahead, disappearing from view behind a curtain of green.

Slowly, he uncurls his fingers.

And then, _he laughs_.

Because there in his palm sits an old, rusting compass pointing North.

He takes a moment to breathe, smiling into the open air before standing, and letting her guide him home.

 

 

**End.**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for all the encouragement and lovely feedback so far, guys, I really appreciate it. This one was a bit of a struggle to write, and I'm not all that happy with it but I hope you enjoyed it anyway :-)


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